Gmail caused a storm when it was launched by Google 2 years ago offering 1GB of space (now in excess of 2.7GB) and having a really slick interface. I’ve stuck to it ever since I got my invite and apart from a few disruptions, it has been the best webmail interface I’ve used so far. Invites are no longer scarce and you can even invite yourself over here.
The other 2 beta webmails I do use on and off are Windows Live Mail and Yahoo! Mail Beta. Both are invite only as well with overhauled interfaces to compete with Gmail.
Live Mail takes a lot of cues from Microsoft Outlook and is pretty decent but unfortunately I find the Internet Explorer-only requirement (loads up the standard Hotmail ‘classic’ interface if you use Firefox) and the ads at the top and right of the page a tad too annoying (no Adblock extension in IE7 :P).
Yahoo! Mail Beta on the other hand took their standard interface and attempted to remodelled it with a look similar to Yahoo! Messenger which in my opinion, made the standard non-beta look and feel a lot better. It feels sluggish overall, which is especially apparent when scrolling. There’s supposed to be an ad on the right hand side as well, but Firefox’s Adblock extension probably made it disappear. :P Here’s a trick you can use to invite yourself to try Yahoo! Mail Beta yourself taken from this page:
- log in to Yahoo Mail
- click Options
- select Account information from the left panel
- go to Member Information, General Preferences, Preferred Content
- select, for example, Yahoo UK
- click Finished
- go to Yahoo Mail
- you’ll see a page that says “It’s the New Yahoo! Mail Beta… and you’re invited.”
- click on “Try Beta Now”.
Here are the screenshots of Gmail, Windows Live Mail and Yahoo! Mail Beta courtesy of Wikipedia.
